


The Joyous Day to Come

by auselysium



Series: Faded Luck [3]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Blow Jobs, Consensual Sex, M/M, Sex, do heed the rating, man this got a lot longer than expected, unprotected sex, x-rated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 17:05:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14477301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auselysium/pseuds/auselysium
Summary: An extra scene from of Our Love is a Star.Oliver makes the trip to Italy to see Elio on Christmas Eve and they spend their first night together in 16 years.





	The Joyous Day to Come

The church bells from on top the Duomo in Crema intone the hours. I count them, miles away and solemn. _9, 10 11,_ then silence across the valley.

In one hour it will be Christmas Day.

This has never been my family’s holy night. Our cultural religion rejects the story of the virgin birth, the living Messiah. Yet, having been brought up in a Christian nation, the sacred stillness that falls over the world, as if all humanity has gathered under the icy stars to seek peace and reverence, still feels very much a part of my identity. I appreciate the anticipation. The inward turn.

It’s nights like this I wished I still smoked, a socially acceptable reason to excuse myself from Mafalda’s _Cenone di Vigilia_ table and wait for a pair of headlights to finally make the turn down our driveway. Instead I slip away mid-conversation, taking my empty wine glass as a prop, only to leave it in the kitchen on my way outside.

There is a crystalline edge to the air. I clasp my elbows, drawing my arms in tight. I should have gotten my coat.

I’d offered to pick him up in Milan myself. He’d insisted on a train ride and a cab. I’d called him a sentimental old man. He’d laughed. “Guilty as charged.”

Am I the world’s worst human being to feel such expectation at his arrival, knowing that her loss has been my gain? Should I temper my own feelings, because while I have been here, enjoying the comforts of family, Oliver has been deconstructing his own family life, bit by honest bit?

We’ve been in touch every day since I left. A call, early morning in my world, late, late in his. His words slow and tired, his voice raspy, spoken through my own home phone. Some days he’d only send a few lines of email from his .edu email address to mine, sent right before bed, composed with a cheerfulness that rang false. At least to me.

I haven’t been his priority, and I understand that completely. But I’ll admit to a few moments of my own anxiety. My heart rides this dangerous, though slightly less sacrificial, line too. Would he call one day to say he and Stephanie have decided to try to work things out? For the boys sake, of course. Would he arrive here reticent and bitter about what I have caused by coming back into his life?

We’d said words that mattered that day in the airport. We’d kissed like we’d invented it. We’d agreed to something but what exactly I don’t know. Are we a couple? A snap of his fingers and a call to his lawyer and we’re together? Together together the way I began to dream we could be if only want of us was brave enough to ask for it? Or does he need time? Will we ease into something with the kind of civilized dates we never went on and goodnight kisses on the front steps of his new apartment? Who will we tell? And how? Will he continue to just live with me? Continue to sleep in my bed like he never left it nearly 16 years ago?

I feel unequipped to make any assumptions. I’d made sure Mafalda had made up the beds in both our rooms, just in case.

White-blue lights bounce over naked fruit trees, the old shocks of the white Fiat Multipla trundle over the uneven gravel. The interior light of the taxi turns on as cash is exchanged and then the back door opens.

“Are you a sight.”

A weary Oliver falls against me. He seems to be giving up every long hour of travel, every wretched, painful conversation he’s had for our sake. I feel small up against him, yet fully prepared to take everything he needs to unload.

I hold his face in my hands. “You’re late.”

It’s a story of snow storms in Boston and missed connections at Heathrow and reroutes through Frankfurt.

“But I’m here.” He says it like he can’t quite believe it and I kiss him, welcoming. My lips are wine-red and cold against his mouth. There is a quirk to his smile when I pull away, a calm relief to his brow.

He turns down a nightgown-clad Mafalda’s offers for a reheated dinner. He chats with my mother for a few minutes, stifling a yawn or two and ignoring her use of the plural pronoun as she leans towards him and says, “We are so, so glad you’re here.”

“Here we are again,” I say as I open the door to the room he’d stayed in all those years ago. Old spaces always feel small to me and I wonder if he feels that way too as he steps into this place of memory.

He walks slowly past the bed, noting every change, as if he’d kept an image of this place like a photograph in his mind and is checking to see what remains.

He peers out the window, into the inky night. There is snow reflecting the moon light in his view instead of tall grass and vines.

“What is this, 1952?” he says and points at the two twin beds, parallel to each other. With a giggle, from opposite sides we push the two beds together. The grinding drag of frame over wooden floor echos down the hall and through the house but I have no concern for noise tonight. Let every person in earshot know that Oliver wants a bed big enough for both of us.

Oliver looks down at the bed, hands on his hips, pleased with our handy work. Then he looks up.

“Where are all your things?”

“Next door.”

“Why?”

My hands find my pockets. “I didn’t want to assume.”

“Did you seriously think I wouldn’t want to spend the night with you tonight?”

“I thought you might be tired…You’ve had a rough couple weeks.”

His lashes fall against his cheeks and he makes a concurring noise.

“Well, that’s true. And I appreciate your concern. I really do,” he states. He fingers dance across the white curve of the bed, flirty and shy. “But I’ve just spent the past two weeks living in your house, surrounded by your things, sleeping in your bed on sheets that smell like you wishing you were there with me, using your soap, your aftershave...”

“What a mooch. You wear my clothes too?”

“Course I did.”

His lips twitch, playful and a bit proud of this fact. I imagine it, wondering what from my wardrobe or top drawer he chose to wear. I feel myself blush, a heat that quickly swoops from my cheeks through my stomach to my cock as Oliver stalks around to my side of the bed.

“Do you really think I’m going to let a little jetlag stop me from finally, finally, getting to you touch you and taste you and be with you? Unless,” he stops. “Do you not want to?”

“No, Oliver, it’s all I’ve been thinking about for two weeks. I just don’t want you to feel rushed or...”

He smiles.

“Come here.” It’s a breathy command. His fingers feel so large at the base of my skull, having worked their way through my hair. His palms cup my jaw, his thumbs hover at the curve of my lower lip. “How could it possibly be rushing when we’ve waited half a lifetime for this?”

This is more than Oliver simply granting permission. This is an invitation to let every long harbored fantasy be unleashed.

How wrong I have been.

I scoop up into his waiting mouth, kissing, open and greedy with flicks of his tongue against mine of varying depth and length so that I can never anticipate what will come next. Left wanting more or overwhelmed by how much he gives me.

We’ve kissed this decade, this month even, but not like this. And this kiss - more than just a prelude to lovemaking - feels like the beginning of a new phase of my life. Our life.

He lays both hands on my hips, encouraging me backwards and onto the bed. I fall onto the mattress, his knee slots between my legs, lowering his body heavy and careful on top of me.

As much as I can, I stay in the present moment. Committing things to memory. _Oliver’s gratified groan as his impossibly long legs slide between mine, the fabric on our pants catching, creating even more friction to play against. His shallow breath as I make quick work of the buttons on his shirt, shedding it elegantly over his shoulders, my fingers trailing on his skin. The smile we share, as he leans back to begin undoing my fly, the one with a bit of wonder tucked into the corners of our lips._

But I find it impossible not to link past to present, draw the line between this night and another first night so many years ago. I follow the breadcrumbs I never bothered laying down back then.

I am wistful enough with him here with me again to reach through time to the boy who was me. The boy who lost and gained so much in this very room. I whisper through the years as I sigh past Oliver’s ear, his skin and my skin firey and soft, past my old tears and heartache to say, “You’ll have you him again. And this time for always.”

He smells of airplane travel, dry-cleaned shirts and just the hint of my shower gel. I wonder if there was ever a solitary moment in that shower, the water steaming hot, where he’d thought of me and touched himself. His head falling forward as his soap slick hand tended to a craving that was instinctual as much as it was emotional. Because I know I have. Even before leaving for Italy.

“God, Elio,” he sighs, his check caresses the flat part of my abdomen near my hip. My hard on is so tantalizingly close and he knows. “I want to.” He licks up the underside of my cock once, his palm flat and warm in its wake.

I moan and nod encouragingly. I prop up on my elbows to watch this gorgeous moment.

“It’s been a long time,” he whispers.

“As I recall, you were pretty proficient in your time. I’m sure it will come back to you.”

“You just tell me if I’ve lost my touch.”

He hasn’t. It’s luxurious and mind-numbing, not to mention a stunning visual, his head bowed, cheeks hollowed. White heat builds in my balls, at the base of my cock where his hand encircles me.

“I’m close,” I warn and he only ups his pace.

I touch his jaw lightly, so contrary to the power with which he sucks me off.

“Do you want me to come in your mouth, Oliver? Would you like that?”

I say it with a sultry confidence I did not possess the first time we’d been together. He practically sobs and I let myself go, the feel of his throat and tireless undulation of his tongue too much to resist. I fall back to the sheets with a strangled cry.

He crawls up my body, a triumphant look to him as I try to catch my breath. He kisses between my pecs, the base of my throat. “It’s weird,” he murmurs, finding the space behind me ear. “I remember you tasting more like peaches.”

I laugh sharply and shove him, hard with my elbow. He laughs too. Disarmed for a moment, I am able to gain the upper hand, shove him onto his back to straddle his hips. He lets me pin his wrists back. “Fuck you,” I tease.

“Yes, please,” he answers too quick to not mean it.

It wasn’t meant to be an offer, though. Just a turn of phrase. Now that it is out there, a suggestion to the universe, I can’t help but consider it.

There had been so many firsts during those 10 perfect days we had. So many acts I’d never imagined, never dared dream I would share with another man. Let alone someone as experienced and patient as Oliver. But then we shared and explored everything our bodies were capable of. Tit for tat. Always equal.

I wonder if, for him, some of those “firsts” became “onlys” in these intervening years.

“Are you sure? We have more than a fist full of days together this time. You know this, right?”

“I know.” He pushes my hair away from my face so he can see my eyes better. I assume he’s going to say more but in his lingering silence I wonder.

Is this what he wants tonight, then? Recreate to those acts he could not manage in his marriage bed? To test them out again to make sure he wants them as much as his memory makes him believe? Test himself? Test us? Or is this pure remembered, desire? The need to be taken? Filled? Consumed?

I go to my room where, again not wanting to assume, I’d left the supplies necessary for comfortable and safe love making. Even though I’m very much an adult, I’d still felt the need to hide them away in my dresser from Mafalda.

Oliver is laid back on the bed, head and shoulders propped on the pillows, as he pulls lazily on his cock. He watches the way the swollen head disappears between his thumb and forefinger, his other hand moving over his chest and belly.

I find myself frozen on the spot. He’s so beautiful. The floorboard beneath my feet creeks and he looks up, pausing.

“Don’t stop on my account,” I say, but my voice feels shallow. Like there isn’t enough air in my lungs to support the words.

He looks at me, eyes dripping with naked honesty. “I’d so much rather it were you, though.”

Eagerly, I slink back onto the bed, crawl between his thighs with my head hanging down so my curls dance across his skin. I arch my shoulders, creating pretty angles I know he’ll appreciate. My nose trails up the crease of his hip and inhale deep.

I have missed him so much.

“When was the last time you were tested?”

He looks up at me confused for a moment, not appreciating the real-life pause, not yet fulling understanding where I’m going with this.

“February, 1987.”

The implications of that date - post wife, post baby, overly precise - create more questions than I care to tackle in the current moment.

“You?” He asks, rescuing me.

“This past fall after my move. New insurance and all…”

The question is left hanging, not needing to be asked. The answer is equally unnecccsary.

“I never have,” I admit into the crook of his neck. “With a man at least.”

“Me neither.”

His heel slips over my calf, pulling me closer. Our bodies are awakening to the prospect of what we’re discussing. My hips undulate in practice, pressing my erection against his like fire.

“You know what this means though, don’t you?”

Exclusivity. There can be no one else without betrayal. Will he really want to go from one committed life to another?

Oliver’s arms envelope me, crossing across my back. He kisses my cheek, long. “I do.’

The moon has disappeared from outside my window. The room is midnight dark now. But I can see him clearly, my eyes adjusted to the low light. He brings his knees up to his chest, grabbing a pillow for under his hips. Presenting himself to me so I can be inside him. This man whom I had worshiped then and whom I love now.

I kiss him through the initial breach, slowing my own breath to help sooth him, my fingers as gentle and slow as I can bear. I watch the tight expression on his face melt away as he adjusts. I know the moment the pressure turns to pleasure when I feel him thrust down to meet me hand.

“Ready?” I ask and his breath stutters, an opened-eyed nod.

The feel of his skin against the naked head of my cock is immense. As is knowing that we are, nearly 16 years later, still able to give each a first. Maybe an only. I nearly weep as I press forward into the impossible heat of him. He clenches around me and I still, waiting, savoring.

It’s so different from any female lover I’ve had unprotected. So new, yet completely familiar. This makes sense, me and Oliver. Oliver and me. He tucks his knees around my ribs as I begin thrusting, our pace building, our voices rising.

“God, so good, so good. Don’t stop,” he cries.

Outside, a thousand miles from our immaculate coupling, the church bells ring again, welcoming Christmas Day.

*

Sun shines across my bedroom when I wake. Bleak, winter angles that are somehow more beautiful than the golden glow of summer light. Buon Natale.

Oliver is asleep next to me, turned on his side, still completely naked. We’d fallen asleep moments after finishing but not before Oliver had held me close in his arms. He’d said even more important words to me last night, words that I didn’t know I needed to hear. I’d said them back, too, nearly brought to tears at finally being able to say them.

I trail my fingers down his spine, cupping his ass because I can’t help myself. He sighs deeply, presses back into my touch and wakes.

His eyes are soft, still blinking away the sleep as he turns towards me.

“My god, it’s you,” he whispers as if he’s just woken up from a dream, only to find reality better. Like this is the way he’d like to wake up every day for the rest of his life.

We share a silent moment, searching for and finding everything we’ve ever needed.

The voices of Mafalda, my mother and the other neighbors she’s invited over for the day, echo downstairs. There is the smell of coffee, of panettone baking in the oven.

There is no tree, there will be no presents.  We will not celebrate Christmas. Our seasonal holiday has already come and gone this year.  But there will be family and warmth and love and that is a joyous day indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> Took much of the way the Perlman's recognize Christmas from some of my best friends who are Jewish. Certainly making no assumptions about how other Jewish families may or may not have a relationship with this holiday, but considering the worldly, culturally Italian nature of their family, I think it makes sense.
> 
> Happy to be back in Elio's head for a bit! :)
> 
> Some words hint at Christmas songs. Title from "Still, Still, Still" gorgeous little Christmas Eve carol.


End file.
